The Choices We Make
by Winged Elf
Summary: Arwen reflects on her choices.
1. The Choices We Make

Arwen looked up from her seat by the fire, where she was embroidering a new tapestry to decorate the hall, when she heard the door close. Seeing who it was, she relaxed.

Faramir had come on one of his regular visits to attend to the mundane business of the realm, such matters as did not demand the King's personal attention. As was perfectly proper and usual, he had brought his wife and their retinue with him. During such visits, Eowyn usually attended Arwen, while her husband was occupied with his work.

Many years had passed since the end of the War of the Ring, and those concerned were not as young as they had been. Eowyn's pace as she entered the room was markedly slower than it had been just a year before. In deference to the advancing years of the Steward and his lady, as well as the King of Rohan and others, lush, soft chairs had now replaced the stone benches that had once filled the room, with rugs covering the floors. Nevertheless, Eowyn could not disguise her wince as she carefully sat down, taking out the cloth she was working, and Arwen smiled sadly, noticing it.

"You are pained, Eowyn. Shall I call for an extra cushion or two?"

"No, my Queen, it is merely the ache in my bones. No cushion could ease that pain, I fear."

Arwen nodded, and the two women returned to their embroidery. However, Arwen could not concentrate, as her mind continually returned to the matter of time. She knew that as one Elven-born, she would keep her youth for much longer than one born to the world of Men. However, even Aragorn would grow old and die long before she did, and she would be left alone until her own end came.

She could see her future sitting opposite her now. Eowyn seemed to grow more frail with each passing year, and Arwen had known when she made her choice that that was the Doom she would face. It had seemed so different, then, though… had seemed almost romantic, to give up all she had known for love.

She did not doubt that she had made the right choice. It was simply that… how not to reconsider, when one is shown what one will become, year by year, in the form of a dear friend? Lost in these thoughts, her mood grew darker, and she might have spoken her fears to Eowyn, had Elessar not entered the room at that moment.

His face lit up to see her, and he strode to where she sat and swept her into his arms for a kiss. With that one action, her faith was restored that had never truly wavered, in her deepest heart. Yes, she had made the right choice. For the love of this man, no sacrifice was too great. 


	2. May Seal Our Fate

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But Arwen went forth from the House, and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Then she said farewell to Eldarion, and to her daughters, and to all whom she had loved; and she went out from the city of Minas Tirith and passed away to the land of Lorien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees until winter came. Galadriel had passed away and Celeborn also was gone, and the land was silent.

There at last when the mallorn leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea. Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, p.1038

The winter had come. The leaves of the mallorn were falling, and the land of Lorien was reaching the end of the glory it once had known. 

And Arwen Evenstar, once Queen of Gondor, knew that her time had come.

As she walked through the forest for the last time, it seemed to her that she heard an echo of the joyful singing that had filled that realm in former times. But the Lord and Lady of that place were gone, and all their subjects with them, leaving the Golden Wood empty and cold. She shuddered at the sight of the once-beautiful trees, bare now and angular like skeletons. 

Arwen had chosen her path long before, and had cleaved to it through all grief, until the choice was no longer hers to make. Only on the departure of her brothers from Middle Earth had she seen the dead end that lay before her, as it lay before all those born to the Doom of Men. Only then had she understood that her fate, like theirs, was the loss and the silence. 

Well, the loss she knew, and the silence was upon her now. It was near impossible to bear, to see what had become of the home she had once known. And yet, she had always known this was inevitable. She journeyed now to Cerin Amroth where she would make her final resting-place. 

When she reached the summit of the hill, she picked the greatest of the trees growing there, and made her grave in the hollow of a great root. As she knelt beside the place, she spoke into the silence, to those who would never hear her words.

"I bid you farewell, my father, my mother, my brothers. I go now to meet my husband in Mandos' Halls, and we will not be reunited, you and I. I wish you well beyond the ending of the world. Goodbye."

She laid herself down and closed her eyes. And the last of the Elven-born passed out of Middle-Earth forever. 


End file.
